Why It's So Difficult to Get an Abortion in Alabama

Despite the fact that abortion is a legal medical procedure in this country, access has been increasingly restricted across the country in recent years. Robin Marty (a frequent Cosmopolitan.com contributor) traveled to Alabama to report for Fusion on just how bad it's gotten in the state. "In the 80s and 90s there were over a dozen abortion clinics in the state of Alabama. Now there are only five," she writes. "Just two of these clinics [Huntsville and Tuscaloosa] can care for patients who have advanced beyond the first trimester and one clinic, in Mobile, offers abortions only up to 9 weeks gestation."

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Because of a mandatory 48-hour waiting period, women seeking abortions who do not live near one of the few clinics in the state must now either make two trips or stay overnight. In an interactive feature, Marty uses a hypothetical woman from Selma as an example and calculates what it would cost her to travel to each of the clinics. To make the 174-mile trip to Mobile, for instance, it would cost $147 for one trip and a hotel room or $54 for two trips. This, of course, is in addition to the cost of the procedure.

Marty also spoke with both abortion supporters and opponents at the clinics and includes audio of them expressing their views. "Any time abortion happens, it hurts the community," Genevieve Aucoin, a pro-life activist in Tuscaloosa, says. "By doing all that we can to keep the clinic closed, we are protecting pre-born children from destruction and ensuring that women can get the health care they deserve from more reputable facilities that are not biased toward abortion." At the Huntsville clinic, Dr. Yaschica Robinson gives a very different perspective: "I was a teen mom myself," she says. "I continued the pregnancy, but for the next young woman who finds herself in my shoes, I want to make sure that she has the option to make that decision."

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